Risk Evaluation
by Lafayette1777
Summary: Sometimes, Scully realizes, impulsivity is the only way to get things done. One-shot.


**Author's Note: Just a one-shot, and a possibility of how Mulder and Scully miht have gotten together. Enjoy, and please review!**

Her car's in the shop for the week, and Mulder offers to drive her home. So she doesn't call Adam, cause it's been a long day of paperwork and it's quicker just to have her partner give her a ride.

She falls asleep in Mulder's passenger seat a few minutes into the drive.

He's chuckling when they pull up and she doesn't make any motion to wake up.

"Scully," he calls, and pokes her in the ribs. She starts to squirm, and he brushes some hair out of her face.

Their eyes meet and they share yet another unexpected moment, where both are thinking the same thing and trying not to make it obvious.

Finally, Mulder speaks, his eyes darting to her apartment building. "We're here."

She grabs her things quickly, and steps on to the sidewalk, thanking him tersely without really meaning to. He nods and drives off, but the heat that flowed between them hasn't left.

Scully takes the four stairs up to the door without hesitation, sticks her key in the lock, and then takes the next flight of stairs as business-like as always. In her apartment, she half-hopes to find the smell food wafting from the kitchen, but Adam is still on the couch, still in slacks and shirtsleeves from his day at work.

"Hey," he calls. "Weren't you gonna call me for a ride?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, but Mulder offered and I didn't want to interrupt your work day."

"Mulder?"

"Yes." She watches his face fall, and is awash with guilt. For a minute, she's sure her emotions are achingly obvious on her face. She stands their awkwardly for a few moments, then puts her coat on the rack, drops her briefcase and heads to the kitchen.

She would like nothing more than to run a bath, grab a glass of wine and soak for a few hours. But Adam has the cooking skills of a four year old, and she owes him at least this after what felt like a betrayal earlier this evening.

After an impressively silent meal, Scully heads to the kitchen to finish up the dishes. She had wanted to finish up some paperwork tonight, but she doesn't have the energy to sit up anymore, as she softly scrubs at a plate.

A few seconds later, she feels a touch on the small of her back, and then arms slip around her, ahead resting on her shoulder. She leans against him for a moment.

There's a name on the tip of her tongue, and it's not Adam.

She can feel his smile against her neck. "I don't get to see you enough."

"You're seeing me now."

"I mean, during the day. That's why I don't want you to hesitate to ask me if you need a ride."

She pauses in her rhythm on the vine embroidered plate. _Oh._

"Okay," she finally says. It's the answer she's supposed to give. She's supposed to save their relationship.

"Let me get those," Adam says, nudging her aside.

She smiles at him thankfully. In the shower, she fights at the tears that rub against her throat.

m m m

Adam is the right choice, because he's stable and kind and well-off. She can see them in twenty years, if she were to marry him. She'd be the stay at home wife, taking care of two to three children, and he'd be the father that worked all day and came home tired, but never raised his voice against the kids. They'd tell each other everything, but there'd hardly be anything to say. Mulder'd be the weird uncle that the father never quite got along with, but the wife would need someone to talk to, because she can't carry the things she's seen by herself.

She thinks of Mulder, a paranoid fanatic, whose life and job are probably on the line on any given day. But he's the spice, the intrigue, they'd be a partnership, even more than they are now. Whether they'd marry or have children, she almost doesn't care, because with Mulder things would be changing no matter what.

The choices are attractive. She has to keep in mind that she already has the love of one while the other is far more of a crapshoot.

The stupidest part is the enormous amount of time she's spent coming up with the pros and cons of each.

m m m

The case is what most agents would consider, a _dead end._

Mulder doesn't believe this, of course, maybe not even when they have three dead witnesses and no further leads. It's their classic kind of investigation—gruesome and inexplicable. Specifically, people are being frozen without any evidence of cold weather, and found in shattered pieces inside their own houses.

There's a detective from the local police working with them, but he hasn't brought up much either, and with the case becoming increasingly out of this world and unsolvable, their resources are drying up. Scully and Mulder head back to their motel, deflated.

She goes to bed quickly, barely bothering to scrape off the make-up and grunge of the day. She crashes into bed and is out cold in seconds.

Mulder wakes her what feels like ten minutes later, but her clock says it's been four hours. He's shaking her shoulder with one hand and buttoning his collar with the other. He tells her what's happened before she can get out a bewildered and half asleep "wha-?"

"Detective Grohl is dead."

"Frozen?"

"Nope. Shot in the face."

"The killer's getting sloppy."

"Maybe," he stands. "You should do the autopsy."

"Let me get dressed."

m m m

The autopsy contains no surprises. Grohl died of a bullet to the brain. But that's not the useful part. The killer left the murder weapon, which was dusted for fingerprints with some success. No matches have come back yet, but it's a start. Scully peels off the latex as Mulder stares down at the mutilated body.

His cell phone rings. "Mulder."

He nods a few times, and Scully watches him with questioning eyes. It's a short conversation, and he ends it with a sigh.

"Nothing," he slumps into a nearby chair. "No matches, no name."

"We're out of options."

He doesn't even argue, and so she sits down next to him without a word, slipping an arm around him. He leans into her, and it doesn't go farther than that.

m m m

"How was your trip?" Adam asks, when she tromps in their front door on Friday morning.

"Frustrating," she replies wearily.

"You should've called me."

Her exhausted brain is not in any kind of mental state to deal with the line of questioning that will come with this. _What were you and Mulder doing? Would you've called him?_

She grits her teeth in an attempt to hold her tongue. But when he meets her eyes, she snaps.

"Dammit, Adam. Will you quit with the constantly bringing up Mulder? Do you not trust me at all?" She knows this will not end well, but her tongue is moving before her brain can catch up. "I'm so fucking tired of being interrogated everyday after work, on top of everything else. Christ."

"Hold on a second, you're mad at me? I wouldn't have to worry if you didn't spend every second of every day with Mulder. I love you, but we never talk anymore. It's always Mulder, always work. Sorry for feeling a tad neglected."

"I'm sorry I had to work my way up into a respectable job. I'm sorry I can't just give that up to be with you. At least Mulder respects me as a professional."

"And I don't?!" Adam's straight, handsome features are clouded in indignation, in betrayal.

She just shakes her head and leaves the room. She takes a long shower, climbs into bed and faces the wall. She doesn't expect to sleep.

After an hour or so, she hears footsteps in the hallway. She's in a half-asleep daze, and so one arm almost shoots out from the warmth of the covers for her gun, until she stops herself.

There's a hesitation at the threshold, and a shadow falls across the bed. She can tell by the sound of his tread across the wood floor that it's Adam before he crawls into bed next to her. She pretends to be asleep as he slips an arm around her.

"Dana," he says softly. "I just...you know I'm sorry. I love you."

She doesn't react.

m m m

She had headed upstairs for just a moment at the end of the day to give Skinner some paperwork. When she returns to the basement office, a catastrophe is in progress.

She recognizes that unfriendly guy smile on both of their faces, that vaguely threatened but keeping it cool look. She can imagine exactly how this conversation had gone in her absence.

_Adam pokes his head through the office door. "Is Dana Scully around?"_

"_Who's asking?" Mulder asks, without looking up from what he's doing. _

_Adam steps in to the room, visitor badge hanging from his coat. "I'm her boyfriend, here to give her a ride home."_

"_Oh," Mulder eyes dart up to take in Adam. "That's odd."_

"_What's odd?"_

"_Usually Scully just gets me to drive her home."_

_Adam smiles politely. "Well, it's more convenient this way."_

Scully absorbs the tension in the room and decides it's quitting time. She greets Adam, and he leans into kiss her. Her eyes zoom to Mulder for just a moment before their lips meet quickly. Then she grabs her coat and briefcase, and begins to follow Adam out the door.

She stops at the threshold, once Adam's in the hallway, so that it's just her and Mulder in the room. She smiles, in what she hopes is in an apologetic manner. "Good night, Mulder."

His eyes almost look hollow, though granted he's across the room from her. "See you tomorrow, Scully."

m m m

On Thursday afternoon, she heads home early to pack for the coming trip. She's finishing up when Adam comes home, accustomed to being the first back from work. He smiles brightly at her, but it quickly fades when he sees her suitcase.

"Business trip?"

"There's a case in Colorado."

"The usual gruesome murders and paranormal phenomena?"

She smiles. "You know the drill."

They're both ignoring the fact that it's the third weekend this month she's been away from home. There's a silence, and finally, she speaks again. "Can I borrow a pair of warm socks?"

"Yeah, they're in my top drawer."

She heads back to the bedroom, scraping around in his sock drawer for a few moments for the thick socks buried in the back. Her fingers brush across something soft, and she stops dead.

m m m

She pretends to sleep on the plane ride out to Denver, while Mulder flips through a magazine next to her.

Suddenly, the issue she's managed to push to the back of her brain whenever possible has become infinitely more potent. Soon, she will have no choice but to make her decision. And there's no going back.

_This can't be happening._

Mulder shakes her gently when the plane lands. He smiles at her, and she returns it. No matter what they are, she knows, he'll always have her back. He won't back down, no matter how much they argue they'll keep each other in check, and they'll punish whoever hurts the other. She would take a bullet for him, and he for her. They may as well be able to read each other's minds. They never run out of things to discuss, to argue about, to smile at.

Adam is sweeter, kinder, in everyday life, whereas Mulder only offers it when she really needs it. Adam is gentler, considerate. He won't tell her like it is, but make sure she's happy with what she does. And despite these amiable qualities, they've built a relationship on nothing. No common denominator. Silences they both ignore when they can't find anything to say.

And that's why she's terrified of that little velvet box protecting a thousand dollars worth of a gold in his top drawer.

m m m

They burst in expecting a fight, but find only an empty warehouse. Mulder swears loudly, and she can sympathize.

The local PD officers stand around disappointedly, and Mulder begins to converse with the chief about the next course of action. Clearly, their source was stringing them along. Which means they'll have to pursue other options.

Mulder's voice fades as Scully wanders to the perimeter of the dirty and dilapidated warehouse. She wouldn't be surprised if there was a crime being committed here, but it's clear by the silence that this fact didn't occur to their killer. She slides a hand over one rusted wall absently, until her fingers run into a barely perceptible crease in the metal surface. She inspects it for a moment, before determining that it is, indeed, a door, and her hand falls to the handle, a tiny knob she has to use her whole weight to pull against.

Finally, the door gives, with a metallic echo all around the high ceilinged building. Mulder and the officers look over to see her stumble backwards, the tension of pulling suddenly released. At first glance, the new corridor is empty, just a service entrance and storage room for whatever this warehouse used to be. She gets to her feet, leisurely brushing herself off. She's reaching for her weapon, preparing to enter and search the room, when a figure leaps from inside the hall and into the doorway. All she sees is a pair of eyes as there is the ringing sound of a gun going off. Their perp has been here after all.

But she doesn't have time to process this, as she hits the ground hard on her right elbow. That's not where the pain comes from, though. She thinks she hears Mulder's voice, but it's got the volume turned down. Everything has, except for the icy clarity of the dark liquid spreading across her right abdomen.

His face appears above her, cupping her own face in his hands. She can't hear what he's saying, but his eyes are frightened. That much is clear. She wants to tell him that everything'll be fine, cause sometimes she really thinks he needs to hear that.

m m m

His face was the last thing she saw before unconsciousness, and it's the first thing she sees when she wakes up.

"Hey," he grins. "You're awake."

"Kind of," she rasps.

He looks at her for a moment, with an expression she can't read. "We caught the guy. We're not sure if he's connected the murders yet, but he's going to jail for a long time nonetheless. I'm making sure of it."

He intertwines his fingers with hers, and she wonders how long he's been sitting by her bed. "That's good," she replies. She pauses, because she's overcome with impulsivity. They're alone, the time seems right, but does she know all the answers?

"Mulder, I..." She trails off.

"Yeah?"

She loses her nerve at the last moment. That niggling worry in the back of her mind takes over. _ What if this will become your greatest regret? What if you haven't given Adam a fair chance? What do you really want from the rest of your life?_

He sees her energy fading, and doesn't press for more. She falls asleep with her hand still in his.

m m m

Adam has flown into Denver to see her. Someone must have told him she'd been injured, because she isn't the one that called him. The first thing she asks when he enters her room, in her sleep dazed and heavily medicated trance, is "Where's Mulder?"

She wakes up quickly when she sees Adam's hurt expression. She tries to recover with a smile as he drops his coat. He attempts to brush it off also. "How ya feeling?"

"Oh, I've been better."

"I should hope so." His face darkens into a grim set that she's never seen before. "I can't believe he put you in this kind of danger."

"I'm sorry?"

"Never mind."

"No, say what you need to say."

"Dana, I just...he let you get hurt. All of this because of him."

She gives him an incredulous look. "Unbelievable. How dare you insinuate-"

"Dana, just never mind, okay? Forget I said anything."

She lets out a heavy sigh, knowing that the time has come. "Adam, I'm sorry. But I can't do this anymore."

"Please, Dana..."

"No, I know you feel it too. This can't work. The only way it would work is if I left Mulder. And I won't do that."

He looks at her for a long time. Neither bats an eye. After a while, he nods in acceptance. It's all very quiet, very civil. He gets to his feet. "You're right. This is how it has to be."

"I wish things could have been different," she says. "I love you."

He smiles, but it's not happy. "Just not enough."

She doesn't know how to reply to that, but her mouth moves anyway. "I guess so."

"Good luck with Mulder." He picks up his coat, and something falls from the breast pocket. The little red velvet box thunks to the floor, but he snatches it up quickly.

Before he can disappear out the door, she calls to him. "Adam, wait."

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad to know you."

"You too, Dana."

Then he's gone, and she lets herself cry for as long as it takes to move forward.

m m m

The apartment feels empty, with her as the only occupant. She misses the kinship of sharing a bed, of seeing her own possessions mixed with another's. But the regret is waning, her constant second guessing tapering off. She is coming to terms with her decision, no matter what that means for her future. She has yet to take the biggest step, of course, but she accepts that there is a progression to these things. She makes herself a TV dinner and settles into the couch for a quiet night.

At some point she must have nodded off, because she jerks awake to find that it's past midnight. Something inside her head clicks into place, and she flooded with courageousness. She grabs her coat and throws on her shoes, climbing into her car before she can think clearly again.

It's time. No more worrying, no more risk evaluation. _You know what you want, Dana._

She pulls up in front of his building, jogs up the front steps to the elevator, where her legs twitch impatiently. On his floor, she practically sprints to the door of apartment 42. She takes a deep breath, refusing to step down, and raps on the wooden door.

To no one's surprise, he's awake, and a few moments later there is the click of the lock mechanism and he opens the entrance wide to her.

"Hey, Scully," he greets her warmly. "Something wrong?"

"No, no, I just need to talk to you."

"About what?"

"It's going to take some explaining. Can I come in?"

He smiles. "Of course."


End file.
